25 June - Zanzibar & Goodbyes
We’re demob happy at Nairobi airport with a 5 hour stopover but guess what?, We love it! Finally we can happily sit and watch a variety of people go by and there’s a full room of Africans and western watching football on TV. Admittedly no one is whooping it up too much but we’re a throng compared to our solitary existence in Zanzibar, which we like. Plus, we have fresh images of Kilimanjaro in our eyes, the plane coasts along the top for a while. As we look below and see nothing………we’re planning the next trip. The book we’re reading on happiness seems to say it’s all a question of gaps between what you expected and what you get. We didn’t get the sun for long enough but we got unexpected other stuff. Toph got me and I got him.
We’ve finally had a nice couple last days/nights to round it all off.
We returned to the night food market and the Bawani hotel disco. We did all this on our first night in Stone Town and now we feel like it’s home on account of the familiarity afforded by a second visit. It’s still a bizarre experience. The Bawani Hotel is described in the 16 year old travel guide I read as the place to be, modern with a rooftop pool etc. Now it’s a shell of its former self, but home of the only disco in town. The pool is indeed v. deep but empty and there’s only a piece of string to signal the perimeter. I guess these people don’t get too drunk because if they did they’d trip in and die falling twenty feet below. There’s concrete everywhere, including a futuristic ‘mushroom’ feature. Ah, the joys of being re-united with the sullen bartender girl who serves you from behind the metal grate/bar; the toilets without a door and where I encounter two girls as interested in my whiteness as I am in their blackness; the sad Arabic midget singer with his electronic keyboard; Barbara and her friend who can only be young prostitutes as any self respecting good Muslim girl would not be out here this time of night; the woman with the blue trainers, her Italian husband bought them for her. Is he a real husband or one who comes back every year for his dose of tourist sex?; the tall boy from SA who plays basketball and tells us to get the company of the ladies all you have to do is buy them some food; the Omani guy whose grandfather lived in Pemba to an awesome 105 or something (thanks to having two wives, no doubt, as the younger was is in her sixties. Muslims are allowed more than one wife to exploit or worship… I suspect the former. And there were more. We, playing anthropologists with them and they no doubt doing the same. The useful revelation of the evening is that Toph likes thongs that peek above the hipband of your jeans. Gosh, and there was me thinking it was vulgar, but these kids know how to get a man’s attention.
Upon our return, we went to the only other bar with a bit of action and which conveniently was behind our hotel. Here, anthropology was cut short as the women gave me dirty looks, possibly as had own man in tow and he therefore couldn’t be a customer? But at least wasn’t here to interfere with their quarry? It seems like most of the other workers in Zanzibar, the sex industry also avails itself of women from the mainland. I guess it’s like the UK, you can go whoring in Newcastle and nobody back in Bradford needs to know what you’re up to?
The next day was glorious, the terrace of the Africa house finally full of people waiting for sunset drinks and music, the turtles on the facing Prison Island were a highlight - never knew their rubber necks could be so soft… they looked like ET, and so were the peacocks. I was very starved for colours. The boat skipper was a handsome man from Pemba, our photos are pure Hollywood and the crumbling houses in town were bathed in light and cheap lunch was delightful. And we found the fish market after looking for it for a while. We could finally see the potential of our host town. And the day before the monkeys had duly showed up in the remaining post stamp size forest. Yes, said Toph, “I’d come here again!” I agree and he owes me swimming with dolphins!
We’ve finally had a nice couple last days/nights to round it all off.
We returned to the night food market and the Bawani hotel disco. We did all this on our first night in Stone Town and now we feel like it’s home on account of the familiarity afforded by a second visit. It’s still a bizarre experience. The Bawani Hotel is described in the 16 year old travel guide I read as the place to be, modern with a rooftop pool etc. Now it’s a shell of its former self, but home of the only disco in town. The pool is indeed v. deep but empty and there’s only a piece of string to signal the perimeter. I guess these people don’t get too drunk because if they did they’d trip in and die falling twenty feet below. There’s concrete everywhere, including a futuristic ‘mushroom’ feature. Ah, the joys of being re-united with the sullen bartender girl who serves you from behind the metal grate/bar; the toilets without a door and where I encounter two girls as interested in my whiteness as I am in their blackness; the sad Arabic midget singer with his electronic keyboard; Barbara and her friend who can only be young prostitutes as any self respecting good Muslim girl would not be out here this time of night; the woman with the blue trainers, her Italian husband bought them for her. Is he a real husband or one who comes back every year for his dose of tourist sex?; the tall boy from SA who plays basketball and tells us to get the company of the ladies all you have to do is buy them some food; the Omani guy whose grandfather lived in Pemba to an awesome 105 or something (thanks to having two wives, no doubt, as the younger was is in her sixties. Muslims are allowed more than one wife to exploit or worship… I suspect the former. And there were more. We, playing anthropologists with them and they no doubt doing the same. The useful revelation of the evening is that Toph likes thongs that peek above the hipband of your jeans. Gosh, and there was me thinking it was vulgar, but these kids know how to get a man’s attention.
Upon our return, we went to the only other bar with a bit of action and which conveniently was behind our hotel. Here, anthropology was cut short as the women gave me dirty looks, possibly as had own man in tow and he therefore couldn’t be a customer? But at least wasn’t here to interfere with their quarry? It seems like most of the other workers in Zanzibar, the sex industry also avails itself of women from the mainland. I guess it’s like the UK, you can go whoring in Newcastle and nobody back in Bradford needs to know what you’re up to?
The next day was glorious, the terrace of the Africa house finally full of people waiting for sunset drinks and music, the turtles on the facing Prison Island were a highlight - never knew their rubber necks could be so soft… they looked like ET, and so were the peacocks. I was very starved for colours. The boat skipper was a handsome man from Pemba, our photos are pure Hollywood and the crumbling houses in town were bathed in light and cheap lunch was delightful. And we found the fish market after looking for it for a while. We could finally see the potential of our host town. And the day before the monkeys had duly showed up in the remaining post stamp size forest. Yes, said Toph, “I’d come here again!” I agree and he owes me swimming with dolphins!
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 6:44 AM
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